Excerpt from the book, McNab, The Township by Peter Hessell:

“Rose Chapman came to Canada in 1903, at the age of 8 thinking she would be reunited with her mother who had earlier emigrated to Western Canada. Instead, a train ticket marked ‘Arnprior” was tagged to her clothes, and she ended up as a ‘home child’ on the farm of Thomas Gillespie on the 9th Line in McNab.

At first the child was too frightened and shocked to speak, because Thomas was “a little man with long black whiskers, and his wife weighted over 300 pounds. Rose did not speak a word for three days. Only when Thomas offered her ‘the gift of a newly laid egg” she managed a smile and began talking. Rose attended number 15 School at German Settlement. In 1911 at the age of 16 she married Andrew Hamilton. The couple lived on the Gillespie farm, where their son Thomas Hamilton was born. Before he died, Thomas Gillespie gave his farm to Rose. At the time of t his writing, Rose, nee Chapman, is 93 years old and living in an Arnprior Nursing Home.”